U.S. Banks Increasingly Pressured by Compliance Requirements

A report from Wolters Kluwer finds that financial institutions are feeling greater regulatory pressures than even at the beginning of 2013.

U.S. banks and credit unions are feeling even greater regulatory and risk management pressures than they were at the start of 2013, found a new survey from Wolters Kluwer Financial Services.

Those results were from the company's first "Regulatory & Risk Management Indicator," which Wolters Kluwer said is a combination of industry data analysis and insight as well as bank and credit union input, providing a barometer around the current state of the overall regulatory and risk management environment within the financial services industry.

The Indicator, which started with a baseline score of 100 in January when Wolters Kluwer surveyed nearly 400 U.S. banks and credit unions, rose to a score of 136 when more than 430 respondents provided their feedback at the end of April. Wolters Kluwer said it uses 10 main factors to calculate the scores, seven of which revolve around direct input from banks and credit unions on their top compliance and risk management concerns and three of which are based on regulatory data the company compiles.

According to Wolters Kluwer, among those ten factors, four significantly drove the increase in the overall score: The number of new federal banking regulations, the increased dollar amount of regulatory fines, the amount of resources needed to dedicate to complained and challenges facing institutions' senior leadership in managing risk.

“It’s apparent from this first reading that banks and credit unions are more increasingly concerned with managing the growing amount of regulatory change on the horizon," said Timothy Burniston, vice president and senior director of Wolters Kluwer Financial Services’ Risk & Compliance Consulting Practice in a statement. "They’re also looking to their executive teams and boards to play a more significant role in helping to mitigate and control the many regulatory and operational risks they face on a daily basis."

Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio